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modern big band music

Modern Big Band Music

United States · 1990s
EpicDancingHappyDarkSentimental

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Description

Modern big band music is contemporary large‑ensemble jazz written for the traditional big band format (roughly 17–20 players) but with 21st‑century harmony, rhythm, and orchestration. It keeps the sectional architecture of saxophones, trombones, and trumpets plus a rhythm section, while expanding the palette with woodwind doubles, flugelhorns, vibraphone, guitar effects, electronics, and occasional strings or voices.

Aesthetically it draws on post‑bop and third‑stream lineage, embracing through‑composed forms, odd and mixed meters, rich clusters and modal colors, and long‑range thematic development. Contemporary writers commonly blend ECM‑like atmospheres, minimalist ostinati, cinematic orchestration, and groove vocabularies from rock, Afro‑Latin, and global traditions. The result ranges from intimate, floating textures to explosive, “epic” tutti statements—equally at home in the concert hall and the jazz club.


Sources: Spotify, Wikipedia, Discogs, Rate Your Music, MusicBrainz, and other online sources

History

Origins and precursors

While big bands flourished in the swing era (1930s–40s), a distinct modern conception took hold later as arrangers absorbed bebop and post‑bop harmony, classical techniques, and new rhythmic ideas. Mid‑to‑late 20th‑century figures such as Thad Jones & Mel Lewis, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Bob Brookmeyer, Don Ellis, and Gil Evans helped redefine the palette with denser voicings, asymmetric meters, and concert‑length works—laying the groundwork for a 1990s renaissance.

1990s–2000s revival

From the early 1990s, ensembles like the Maria Schneider Orchestra and the Mingus Big Band catalyzed a surge of new writing in New York and beyond. Commission‑driven European radio bands (WDR, NDR, hr‑Bigband, BBC Big Band) fostered composer‑led projects, while university jazz programs trained new generations of writers and doublers. The era saw extended suites, orchestral colors, and a composer‑centric model become common.

Global expansion and stylistic breadth

In the 2000s–2010s, groups such as Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, Dave Holland Big Band, Bob Mintzer Big Band, Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, and the Metropole Orkest showcased the idiom’s range—from chamber‑like transparency and ECM lyricism to rock‑inflected, high‑octane charts. Cross‑pollination with contemporary classical music, minimalism, ambient textures, and non‑Western grooves broadened the language.

2010s–present: Technology, education, and commissioning

Modern big band music now thrives through residencies, international festivals, conservatory commissions, and GRAMMY‑recognized albums. Composers routinely employ click tracks, electronics, and spatial staging; notation software and high‑fidelity demos accelerate rehearsal efficiency. The idiom remains a fertile laboratory for orchestration, large‑scale form, and improvisation, uniting the legacy of swing with present‑day sound worlds.

How to make a track in this genre

Instrumentation and color
•   Core seating: 5 saxes (with doubles on flute/clarinet/bass clarinet/soprano sax), 4 trombones (incl. bass bone), 4 trumpets (flugelhorn doubles), rhythm section (piano/keys, guitar, bass, drums), often vibraphone and/or auxiliary percussion. •   Expand colors with French horn, tuba, voice, strings, and tasteful electronics. Exploit mutes (Harmon, cup, bucket), flute/clarinet choirs, bass clarinet lead, guitar ambience, and Rhodes/analog synth pads.
Harmony and voicing
•   Combine post‑bop extensions (♭9/♯11/♭13), quartal and cluster voicings, and modal pedals. Use planing, polytonality, and “ECM‑like” open harmony to create breadth. •   Voice lead across sections: sax solis in close clusters, brass in spread drop‑2/3, woodwinds for transparent chorales. Orchestrate chord tones to highlight inner‑voice motion.
Rhythm and groove
•   Employ odd meters (5/4, 7/8, 11/8), mixed‑meter phrases, metric modulation, and layered ostinati. Alternate groove episodes (Afro‑Latin, straight‑8ths rock, swing, second‑line) within a single form. •   Drums: design bespoke set‑ups (mallets/brushes/sticks), clear setup figures, and cue kicks. Bass alternates between walking, pedal drones, and riff‑based ostinati.
Form and development
•   Favor long‑form arcs: multi‑section suites, passacaglias, or theme‑and‑variations. Develop a small motif via reharmonization, orchestral re‑voicing, stretto, and rhythmic augmentation. •   Balance improvisation and composition: place soloists within pre‑scored textures (pads, counterlines, background figures) to maintain narrative continuity.
Writing for sections and solos
•   Craft sax solis with idiomatic articulation and register choreography; interleave brass “call‑and‑response” or antiphonal choirs. •   Give soloists contrasting terrains (open vamp → through‑changes → free cadenza) and provide background figures that evolve with the solo’s intensity.
Notation, rehearsal, and production
•   Provide clear roadmaps, lettered rehearsal marks, drum lead‑sheet cues, and condensed conductor score. Include doubles, mute changes, and instrument switches with ample bars to change. •   Consider click or guide tracks for complex meters; provide mockups for commissioners. Record with section mic’ing, spot mics for woodwind doubles, and room pairs for depth; avoid over‑compression to preserve dynamics.

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Influenced by
Big Band
Big band is a large-ensemble style of jazz and popular dance music built around brass, reed, and rhythm sections playing arranged parts. Typical instrumentation includes five saxophones (often doubling clarinet/flute), four trombones, four trumpets, and a rhythm section of piano, guitar, upright bass, and drum set. The music emphasizes swing rhythms, call-and-response between sections, riff-based writing, and dramatic shout choruses, while leaving space for improvised solos. Born in American ballrooms and theaters, big band became the sound of the Swing Era, providing both music for dancing and a platform for sophisticated arranging and orchestration that shaped much of 20th‑century jazz and popular music.
Jazz
Jazz is an improvisation-centered music tradition that emerged from African American communities in the early 20th century. It blends blues feeling, ragtime syncopation, European harmonic practice, and brass band instrumentation into a flexible, conversational art. Defining features include swing rhythm (a triplet-based pulse), call-and-response phrasing, blue notes, and extended harmonies built on 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths. Jazz is as much a way of making music—spontaneous interaction, variation, and personal sound—as it is a set of forms and tunes. Across its history, jazz has continually hybridized, from New Orleans ensembles and big-band swing to bebop, cool and hard bop, modal and free jazz, fusion, and contemporary cross-genre experiments. Its influence permeates global popular and art music.
Swing
Swing is a jazz style centered on a buoyant, danceable groove created by a walking bass, four-to-the-bar rhythm guitar, a backbeat emphasis on 2 and 4, and a lilted “swung” eighth-note feel. Typically performed by big bands (saxes, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section) as well as small combos, it balances written arrangements with improvised solos. Hallmarks include call-and-response between horn sections, riff-based melodies, shout choruses that build intensity near the end of an arrangement, and rich sectional voicings grounded in blues language and ii–V–I harmonic motion. Tempos range from medium to brisk, serving social dances like the Lindy Hop and Jitterbug. Swing’s expressive phrasing, dance-floor focus, and sophisticated arranging made it the dominant popular music of the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Post-Bop
Post-bop is a modern jazz style that emerged in the early-to-mid 1960s as a synthesis of bebop, hard bop, modal jazz, cool jazz, third stream ideas, and the experimental impulses of the avant‑garde. It typically features acoustic small ensembles (often trumpet, saxophone, piano, bass, and drums) interacting with highly flexible time, non-functional or modal harmony, and motivic development rather than relying strictly on bebop chord cycles. Its sound balances structure and freedom: forms are clearly composed and often intricate, but improvisers stretch time feels, reharmonize on the fly, and use advanced harmonic colors such as quartal voicings, pedal points, and chromatic planing. Canonical touchstones include Miles Davis’s mid‑’60s Second Great Quintet (e.g., E.S.P., Nefertiti), Wayne Shorter’s Speak No Evil, Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage, Andrew Hill’s Point of Departure, and many mid‑’60s Blue Note recordings that pushed beyond hard bop.
Avant-Garde Jazz
Avant-garde jazz is a boundary-pushing current of jazz that privileges experimentation, collective improvisation, and timbral exploration over conventional song forms and chord progressions. It often uses atonality or loose tonality, extended instrumental techniques, shifting or absent meters, and open forms. Ensembles may emphasize texture and density as much as melody and harmony, drawing as readily from modern classical music and non-Western traditions as from blues and bebop. While sometimes intense or noisy, avant-garde jazz also embraces spaciousness and silence, allowing players to interact in real time without predetermined roles. The result is music that questions the limits of jazz itself, foregrounding sound, spontaneity, and social expression.
Third Stream
Third stream is a hybrid genre that intentionally merges the languages of jazz and Western classical music. Coined by composer and horn player Gunther Schuller in 1957, the term describes music that is neither "jazz with strings" nor classical music with a swing veneer, but a true synthesis. It typically combines classical forms (such as fugue, theme and variations, or concerto-like structures) and orchestration with jazz harmony, rhythm, and improvisation. The results range from chamber-sized works for jazz combo and string quartet to large pieces for orchestra and jazz soloists. Third stream pieces often alternate between fully notated sections and improvised passages, use counterpoint and extended harmony, and may blend straight and swung time feels within a single work.
Modern Creative
Modern creative is a strand of contemporary jazz that bridges post-bop rigor, free jazz openness, and a wide palette of timbral and global influences. It is less a fixed formula and more a practice-driven aesthetic where composition and improvisation constantly inform each other. The style typically features original frameworks (motivic cells, modular forms, graphic cues) that leave room for exploratory improvisation, odd meters, modal and non-functional harmony, and textural experimentation. It often draws on contemporary classical techniques, world traditions, and sound design, while retaining a jazz sensibility for swing feel, interplay, and spontaneity. Rather than aligning with fusion’s electric sheen or strict revivalism, modern creative foregrounds the composer–improviser, favoring ensembles that sound distinct from project to project. Labels, scenes, and collectives (ECM, AACM, downtown NYC) helped define its tone: spacious yet intense, lyrical yet abstract, disciplined yet adventurous.
Jazz Fusion
Jazz fusion (often simply called "fusion") blends the improvisational language and harmonic richness of jazz with the amplified instruments, grooves, and song forms of rock, funk, and R&B. It typically features electric guitars, electric bass or fretless bass, Rhodes electric piano, clavinet, analog and digital synthesizers, and a drum kit playing backbeat- and syncopation-heavy patterns. Hallmarks include extended chords and modal harmony, complex and shifting meters, brisk unison lines, virtuosic improvisation, and a production aesthetic that embraces effects processing and studio craft. The style ranges from fiery, aggressive workouts to polished, atmospheric textures, often within the same piece. Emerging in the late 1960s and flourishing through the 1970s, jazz fusion became a bridge between jazz audiences and rock/funk listeners, shaping later styles such as jazz-funk, smooth jazz, nu jazz, and parts of progressive and technical rock/metal.
British Dance Band
British dance band refers to the polished, hotel-ballroom and radio-friendly dance orchestras active primarily in Britain during the 1920s and 1930s. Characterized by smooth, tightly arranged versions of foxtrots, waltzes, quicksteps, and tangos, the style blended American jazz-dance band idioms with British light-music and music-hall sensibilities. Improvisation was usually restrained in favor of clear melody, elegant voicings, and reliable “strict-tempo” rhythms designed for social dancing. Typical ensembles featured saxophones (often clarinet doubles), trumpets, trombone, violins, piano, banjo or guitar, string bass or tuba, and drums—sometimes with a crooner or vocal trio. The sound was urbane and genteel, popularized via prestigious hotel residencies (e.g., the Savoy) and BBC broadcasts, and it helped standardize many songs that later became part of the Great British and American songbooks.
Orchestral Jazz
Orchestral jazz blends the improvisational spirit, swing feel, and extended harmony of jazz with the instrumentation, color, and large-scale forms of the orchestra. Typically built on a big-band core of saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and rhythm section, it augments the palette with strings, French horns, tuba, harp, and expanded percussion to achieve symphonic weight and timbral variety. Arrangers use techniques from classical orchestration—counterpoint, sectional scoring, motivic development—while preserving room for jazz solos and groove. The style took shape in the 1920s as “symphonic jazz” in the United States (e.g., Paul Whiteman’s commissions of George Gershwin), matured through Duke Ellington’s extended suites, and evolved post‑war via Stan Kenton, Claude Thornhill, and Gil Evans. Today, contemporary composers such as Maria Schneider continue the lineage with modern harmony, subtle textures, and long-form works.
Has influenced
Orchestral Soundtrack
Orchestral soundtrack refers to film (and later television and game) scores written primarily for symphony orchestra, drawing on the language of Romantic and post-Romantic concert music while serving narrative and dramatic functions. The style emphasizes leitmotifs, rich orchestration, and a wide dynamic range to underscore character, mood, and on‑screen action. It balances thematic memorability with precise synchronization to picture, and often blends late‑Romantic harmony with Impressionist color, occasional modernist techniques, and, in contemporary practice, subtle electronic augmentation.
Traditional Gospel
Traditional gospel is a sacred vocal music tradition rooted in African-American church life, centered on Christian testimony, communal participation, and expressive singing. It is typically built around call-and-response patterns, strong melodic hooks, and harmonies shaped by spirituals, blues, and hymnody. Performances commonly feature choir or lead vocalist with choir responses, supported by piano and/or Hammond organ, handclaps, and sometimes a full rhythm section. Lyrically, it focuses on faith, salvation, perseverance through hardship, gratitude, and personal relationship with God, often delivered with improvisation, melisma, and dynamic intensity. Compared with contemporary gospel, traditional gospel tends to emphasize church-oriented repertoire, classic song forms, and a “sanctified” feel over pop or electronic production aesthetics.
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